


Mordelia's Kitchen

by f-ing-ruthless-baz (f_ing_ruthless_baz)



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Babysitting, False Accusations, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25707901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/f_ing_ruthless_baz/pseuds/f-ing-ruthless-baz
Summary: I told Baz I was never going to help him babysit his siblings again, not after the fiasco last year with Mordelia and a pair of scissors. (My hair still never lies properly in that spot, even after IAs you were’d it. It’s a permanent cowlick.)Now that there’sfourlittle ones in the mix, I was even more reluctant to get involved, but Niall insisted that we needed to do this for Baz. (It’s always about Baz. What about whatIneed? What aboutmyhair?)Dev and Niall lend a hand to babysit Baz's siblings with him, and Dev is afraid of becoming the third wheel.
Relationships: Dev & Niall & Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Dev/Niall (Simon Snow)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 74





	Mordelia's Kitchen

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from llamapyjamas: _babysitter!AU, friends to lovers, "what is that?"_ (with a special request for DeNiall, so here you go. ❤️)
> 
> This one got away from me and I don't think I can call it a ficlet. 😅

I don’t know how I let myself get dragged into this.

I told Baz I was never going to help him babysit his siblings again, not after the fiasco last year with Mordelia and a pair of scissors. (My hair still never lies properly in that spot, even after I **As you were** ’d it. It’s a permanent cowlick.)

Now that there’s _four_ little ones in the mix, I was even more reluctant to get involved, but Niall insisted that we needed to do this for Baz. (It’s always about Baz. What about what _I_ need? What about _my_ hair?)

Baz assigned a demon child to each of us and put himself in charge of the twins. He seems to think he’s taking a bullet for us with that one, but that leaves Niall with a screaming infant and me with Mordelia. She’s moved on from wanting to be a hair stylist and is now highly enthusiastic about becoming a television chef.

I suppose it could be worse. All I have to do is sit and watch her throw random ingredients together in the kitchen while she narrates what she’s doing. I mostly scroll on my phone.

Vera, who has the day off, would probably have a fit if she saw the state Mordelia’s made of the kitchen, but there’s child-lock spells on all the sharp objects and things that burn, so there’s not a lot of actual damage she can do. (At least my hair is safe, that’s for sure.)

She ends up making a blue paste with flour and sugar and a ton of liquid food colouring, and then tells me to eat it. I take a clean spoon and dip it into the bowl, without touching the paste, and mime eating some for her. Apparently that’s not good enough, but I’m not about to give myself a stomach ache just to humour her.

I have to spell everything clean when she’s done, and it’s such a big job that I’m drained by the end of it.

“We should make cheeseburger pizza!” she says excitedly, once I’ve finished getting the last of the blue paste off the upper cabinets. (Unfortunate incident with a salad spinner when I wasn’t looking.)

“Or maybe we should go find the others,” I say, but I leave off, _“So you can bother them instead.”_

We find Niall and Baz with the smaller children upstairs in the play room, and I nearly collapse into an armchair with relief. Even if there’s not much here to interest Mordelia—she says it’s all _baby_ stuff—at least the others manage to provide some level of distraction. Though she seems to like showing her sisters how to play with their toys the _right_ way— _the Mordelia way_ —so it keeps her out of my hair. Literally.

I reach my leg out and nudge Niall with my toe, where he’s sitting on the floor to entertain the baby. He probably doesn’t need to be quite so involved, since the kid doesn’t really do much yet, but Niall seems to be enjoying it. The baby giggles and gurgles every time Niall pulls a funny face. It’s wretchedly endearing.

He looks up at me—Niall does—and smiles.

“How was your afternoon, then?” I ask him. My eyes cut over to Mordelia, who’s still lecturing one of the twins about a Barbie or something.

Niall leans back on his hands and shrugs. “This guy slept for most of it. I read a book.”

“Nerd,” I say. He snorts.

Baz comes over and stands tall over us. “Would you mind watching the girls for a few minutes?” he asks Niall. He holds up his phone. “Daphne wants me to call her and check in.”

I sink down in my seat in embarrassment. I know the reason he’s asking Niall to keep an eye on them is because he doesn’t trust me. (Probably for the best.) And he never calls Daphne when we’re in the room, ever since that one time I loudly called Niall a fucking prick while Baz was on the phone with her. In my defence, I’d forgotten he was there, off in the corner of the room. And Niall was being a fucking prick.

Niall picks up the baby once Baz leaves and hands it to me. “Here,” he says. “Hot potato.”

“I—What is that?” I say as he settles the snotty thing in my arms. Literally snotty. Just pouring out of his nose.

“I’m keeping an eye on the girls, so you can keep an eye on him,” Niall says. “Quit making that face, it’s only for a minute.”

I scowl as Niall turns away, and then inspect the leaking child I’ve been made to hold. He’s staring up at me like he’s not pleased about this situation either. He scrunches up his face so tight, he’s about to go red. I hold him up a bit higher to see if I’ve accidentally got his leg squished under him or something, but he appears to be fine. Except for the look of anguish on his face. Followed by a moment of relief.

 _Shit_.

“Niall,” I say loudly, holding the kid up so he’s no longer sitting directly on my lap. “I think we have a situation.”

Niall looks over at me from across the room with a doll poised in his hand, like he was about to put on a fucking puppet show. It only takes a few seconds of concentrated eye contact to convey what the problem is, and he grimaces but gets to his feet.

“You’re in charge of them, then,” he says when he takes the crying, foul-smelling creature from me.

Niall leaves with the baby, and I grudgingly head over to where Mordelia is telling the twins what their dolls should wear.

“No, she has to wear clothes,” Mordelia says, ripping a naked doll from her sister’s grasp. “She’s not a slut.”

I laugh and cough and choke at the same time, with the shock of it. I have to wonder where she heard that one.

She hands me a half-dressed doll, as though I’m now part of the production line. “She can wear this,” she says, holding out a velcro-closure dress in her tiny fist.

I take it from her and try to figure out how to get it on, considering this doll’s arms don’t bend. She yells at me for putting it on backwards and then shows me how to do it correctly. So much for these being baby toys.

“Dev,” she says with a serious look on her face once I’ve dressed another doll, per her request. “Is Niall Baz’s _boyfriend_?”

I nearly choke-laugh again, but I manage to restrain myself. “Er, no, I don’t think so,” I say. “Where did you get that idea?”

“Mummy said that Baz likes kissing boys, not girls,” she says. “So he’d have a boyfriend, not a girlfriend.”

“I’m pretty sure Baz isn’t kissing anyone,” I say. It’s hard not to laugh when she looks so serious about this.

“I think Niall should be his boyfriend,” she says after a moment of contemplation. “His hair is nice.”

“Well, I think it takes more than that to be a boyfriend.”

“That’s good.” She frowns at me. “Your hair is horrible.”

I pat down my cowlick self-consciously just as Baz and Niall walk in together. I only catch the tail end of their conversation, but Niall is laughing and Baz is smiling, and they’re both fussing over Sir Shits-A-Lot in Niall’s arms.

Something unpleasant rises out of my stomach like bile, but I swallow it back down. It’s an irrational thought, that’s all. An irrational feeling. It serves me no purpose.

Baz nods for me to stand up and join them. “Get the monsters,” he says. “It’s feeding time.”

There’s minimal food-throwing at dinner, so we deem it a success. Niall was the one who started it, anyway, tossing a chunk of his dinner roll at Baz’s head. Baz just did that thing where he pretends he’s doesn’t find it amusing, though I think once the little ones joined in, he was rather peeved.

I tell myself I must be imagining the fond looks between Baz and Niall all evening. They’re not together. They’re not a couple. They haven’t been sneaking around behind my back. They aren’t trying to make me a third wheel. Everything is the way it’s supposed to be. Niall isn’t with Baz.

He’s not.

He can’t be.

Mordelia’s the last of children to go to bed, and she insists that I be the one to tuck her in and read her a story. I’d be flattered if I didn’t think she was doing it just to be obnoxious. I wouldn’t put it past her to be that devious. Her mother may be softer than a cotton ball, but Mordelia is still a Grimm.

I choose the smallest book I can find on her shelves so I can get out of there quickly. She complains that it’s a book for babies, but when I start reading it she snuggles down under her covers and hangs on every word, as though the words are just as comforting as the blankets themselves.

By the time I get back downstairs, Baz and Niall are already settled in the sitting room without me. I try and visually measure the space between them, from a distance. Do they usually sit that close? Did they move apart when they heard me coming?

They both seem perfectly relaxed, and I didn’t hear any scrambling to get into a less compromising position as I made my way down the hall. Any other day, I wouldn’t think anything of it.

But the thought screams through my head until anger bubbles up inside me.

Niall looks over at me, resting his arm on the back of the settee, and I notice that his t-shirt is bunched up on one side. “You alright, Dev—”

“Are you guys fucking?” I blurt out before I can stop myself.

Both their brows furrow.

“Are we fucking what?” Niall asks. He’s either completely oblivious, or a really good actor and I never realized.

“Each other,” I say through my clenched jaw.

Baz pinches his mouth shut like he’s caught between wanting to laugh and wanting to hurl insults at me. “What, in Merlin’s name, would make you think that?” he says.

“I—I don’t—” I’m pretty sure I got this all wrong. “Mordelia asked me if—It—It got me thinking about—Never mind, I don’t know what—Never mind.”

“Niall isn’t even gay,” Baz says, as if this should have been an obvious argument against my paranoia. I think that information just slipped my mind at the time. “And he’s not exactly my type,” Baz adds, and then turns to Niall. “No offence.”

Niall looks like he’s ready to disappear into the settee, with his chin tucked in and his arms crossed and his ears turning red.

“Oh, why, because he doesn’t have a magic sword and a thundering gait?” I say defensively, and Baz reels back. Like he thought I hadn’t noticed, after all these years. “Maybe he’s not self-absorbed enough? Or maybe he’s just too thoughtful. Too kind and funny and handsome. Yeah, who would want that?”

“Would you _stop_ ,” Niall cuts in, standing up angrily. “If you’re both going to talk about me like I’m not here, then I might as well leave.”

He storms out through the far doors, towards the dining room, and Baz and I are left staring at each other as shame creeps along my spine. This whole thing has been a nightmare.

“I should… talk to him,” I say, though it takes a few seconds for my body to get the memo and actually move.

I pass through the dining room and into the kitchen, where Niall is leaning against the island with his hands pressed into the countertop.

“I’m sorry,” I say, because I don’t know where to start.

He turns around to face me. I can’t tell if he looks more angry or hurt. “Did you really think that I—” He lowers his head and pushes his hand into the front of his hair. “I can’t believe you thought—”

“I truly am sorry, Niall,” I tell him. Apologizing is not my strong suit. “The idea of it made me so angry that I just blew everything out of proportion.”

“Which part made you angry, Dev?” he says, lifting his gaze to mine again. “That you thought I was dating Baz or that you thought I didn’t tell you?”

I blink at him for a moment. I don’t know what the difference is. “I—Both! I hated both,” I say.

“You’re my best friend, Dev,” he says, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t lie about something like that—Look, we may be Baz’s only friends, but you’re my _best_ friend, do you get that?”

I still don’t know what to say, so I just nod.

He plays with his hair again and chuckles softly. “Besides, if I were going to date either of you, you’d be the obvious choice,” he says.

The anger and shame I felt earlier twist into something new, something that makes my heart race.

“I mean, you’re a lot more fun than he is, most of the time,” he continues. “You’ve got better taste in films by far. And you’re definitely better looking,” he adds with a laugh, lifting his head.

“Plus, I just—” His voice drops a little. “I just like you—”

I’m up in his personal space before I can think better of it and plant my lips squarely on his. I think I’ve surprised him, because our mouths just sort of get mashed together between our teeth. I relax enough to give him space to kiss me back, but when he doesn’t, I pull away quickly so I can set myself on fire.

He grabs me by the front of my shirt before I can get very far, staring at me with his eyes wide. I almost wouldn’t be surprised if he punched me, but instead he pulls me back in and I meet his lips again, much more engaged than before.

I don’t fully understand what I’m doing here, but we find a rhythm with our mouths that’s good— _so good_ —and I let myself get lost in it.

His arms find their way around my waist and he pulls me flush against him, abruptly. Kissing him in the abstract is nice, albeit slightly confusing, but I’m suddenly very aware of our bodies pressed together—and how much _I want our bodies pressed together_ —and I jerk back before things escalate.

I’m laughing, breathlessly, as we break apart, and he grins and lets his forehead rest against mine. I have so many questions—for both of us—but before I can even start to form them, I hear a squealing giggle.

We both look over at Mordelia, who’s perched halfway up the back staircase into the kitchen.

“Ewwwwwwww,” she says, pressing her face between the bannister posts, though the space is too small for her to get through. “Were you two kissing?”

“No,” I say, and Niall snickers.

“Dev,” she adds, dropping her voice to a stage whisper that both Niall and I can still hear. “Is Niall your boyfriend?”

“You’re supposed to be in bed,” I tell her, ignoring the question. “The Humdrum sneaks into people’s houses in the middle of the night and kidnaps little girls who aren’t in bed.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “That’s bullshit,” she says seriously, but marches back up the stairs, nevertheless.

Niall and I exchange a glance that says we’re both holding in a fit of laughter.

“Where the fuck does she get this stuff?” I say, and Niall looks at me pointedly. “Come on, I watch what I say around her. Usually.”

“Well,” Niall says, slipping his arms back around my sides and drawing me in close enough that my hips just barely meet his. I take in a sharp breath. “What about her question?”

“What about it?”

He angles his head towards me like he’s going to kiss me again, but he doesn’t. “Is that something you’d want?” he says. “Me being your boyfriend?”

The weight of the word makes the reality of the situation come crashing down around me. I don’t know what any of this means. I don’t know what it means for me.

“Maybe,” I tell him honestly. “I think I need… to process some things.”

He nods in understanding.

I place my hands around the sides of his neck. “But I think I like this,” I add, and he smiles. “Us. Like this.”

“Okay,” he says. He pushes his jaw forward, like a no-pressure invitation, and I kiss him again. Softly. Briefly. “We’ll start with that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Presumably, they have to go tell Baz what's going on, before he hears Mordelia's take on things. Poor Baz.
> 
> (Also, I know at the end of Carry On, Dev and Niall are surprised about Baz and Simon, as though they didn't actually suspect Baz was into him, but that's why I tagged this "Not Canon Compliant" because I make my own rules in this divergent AU.)


End file.
